I am posting some pictures of weaving tools used by Ibanic women to weave the ikat and sungkit textiles. These particular picks and beaters were most likely carved by men for their women. Either as suitor or husband.

I purchased them recently from a dealer in Kuching although I owned one of each prior.

The "picks" are usually carved of bone but particularly interesting are the two metal ones.

When weaving ikats, the weavers seem to use the picks to "rake" across the unwefted threads from time to time to sort of straighten them out.

When weaving sungkits, they use a pick as a continual aid to wind the discontinuous lengths of supplementary threads around the warp thread(s) and also to unpick a mistake that they notice in time.

The "beaters" are used as the name sounds to beat down the new weft thread after it is inserted and also to beat down the bottom of the new "shed" after the warp threads have been crossed over the beaten down weft thread. It is interesting that the beaters bear more than a passing resemblance to swords of the headhunters although I expect that much of the form is dictated by its function.

I have observed the use of beaters and picks, etc., several times at the Tun Jugah Gallery in Kuching where women are taking lessons in learing the arts of ikat and sungkit. By the way, Datin Amar Margaret Linggi, an iban lady and author of one of the important books on iban weavings - "Ties That Bind" -recently died of cancer.

It is always fascinating to me as well as movingto hold these implements in my hand and imagine them being used by weavers. Who knows, perhaps some of the textiles I own may have also woven with these implements.

Thank you so very much for posting the photos of these very beautiful weaving tools. They are works of art as well as functional tools. Some of the picks have echoes of Ba sa dung Li hair pins and the beaters of Li looms and weaving tools. What a wonderful addition to your collection.

(Hope you don't mind but I did some editing of your photos as most were wider than 600 pix and distort the forum for easy viewing. You know how picky I am about this!!)

Hi Pam - thanks for your kind words and I do not mind your editing at all! In fact I have now reoriented the beater in my own picture files. It looks better that way.

Could you possibly post some of the "Ba sa dung Li hair pins and the beaters of Li looms and weaving tools" you mentioned for comparisons? Or perhaps any links or places I could see them on line? I would very much like to see them and I would hope others would as well.

I forgot to add an aside prompted by the closeup of the Iban carved designs, that although the men often used overlapping iconography in their carvings (and certainly paintings) I have never seen it in Iban women's weavings except for some very, very recent pieces. I have always wondered why. I doubt that it really has anything to do with the medium.

The closest I have seen in older weavings are forms which touch each other and rebound but which could just conceivably be interpreted as crossing but certainly the carving or painting convention of crossing forms is not evident.

Great work on the Forum.

Pamela wrote:

John

Thank you so very much for posting the photos of these very beautiful weaving tools. They are works of art as well as functional tools. Some of the picks have echoes of Ba sa dung Li hair pins and the beaters of Li looms and weaving tools. What a wonderful addition to your collection.

(Hope you don't mind but I did some editing of your photos as most were wider than 600 pix and distort the forum for easy viewing. You know how picky I am about this!!)

Re the Iban designs. As the men carved the tools and also did/do the other carvings of the tools I think that it is to be expected that they would use similar designs in both since they will be part of their carving skill-set and in their minds. Some designs, as you know, are in both baskets and textiles which makes me think that the actual process of weaving has some influence over mutuality of design.

Thanks for the pictures of these lovely weaving tools. Great photography Susan.

I am posting an iban weaving spool [Jengkuan / turak (Spool shuttle)]. It still has some red thread inside of it.

In case the forum members have not seen this, there is a great movie of the Calico textile museum in Ahmedabad. I was there many years ago (25 or so) but do not recall any of this. It must have been considerably improved since I was there. Also, I was not "into" textiles back then.

What I do recall was the brilliant flash of a Kingfisher come down to a little shady pool outside. It made the first line of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem - the Kingfisher - suddenly come clear to me. "As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame". That's just what it looked like.

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File comment: Iban weaving spool. Men carved the tools for their sweetheart or wife. The spool is as wide as the usual shoulder width of the backstrap loom.weft thread spool.jpg [ 11.18 KiB | Viewed 9278 times ]

I was going through my Dreamweaver files and I finally found a web page that I put together ages ago to talk to Olivier Tallec about his beautiful Ba-sa-dung (Run) Li hairpin. There is a lovely photo of his hairpin and then scans from the (illusive) book "Traditional Culture of the Li Ethinic Group". See http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... irpins.htm I do think that these beautiful pins have a similar 'look' to the lovely Iban weaving implements posted by John.

Thank you for the link to the charming Li hairpins. I agree that there are interesting similarities. The need to ornament is so deep isn't it? I wonder why that is?

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum but I thought I would post some more Iban ornamented tools althought they do not have anything to do with textiles. These are carved wooden paddles used both for forming pots and leaving surface decorations. The technique must be common in SEA because I saw an exhibition movie in Taiwan of their aboriginal peoples making pottery the same way by smacking the clay around their hand into a pot shape. I' ve posted the paddles as well as a pot with example surface decorations. I don't believe the Iban make such pots anymore given the difficulty, time and probability of cracking in the firing heat. They can of course buy or trade for such things. Good for them but more's the pity for us.

Pamela wrote:

I was going through my Dreamweaver files and I finally found a web page that I put together ages ago to talk to Olivier Tallec about his beautiful Ba-sa-dung (Run) Li hairpin. There is a lovely photo of his hairpin and then scans from the (illusive) book "Traditional Culture of the Li Ethinic Group". See http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... irpins.htm I do think that these beautiful pins have a similar 'look' to the lovely Iban weaving implements posted by John.

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